'More experienced than any other female candidate'

DW: While there is an abundance of academic literature on the presidency as well as women in politics, the history of female presidential candidates has been overlooked so far. Why is that?

Ellen Fitzpatrick: There's a wide selection of literature on women and politics in the US. But I think for historians the subject of women presidential candidates in some sense was of little interest because it fell between two fields. Since no woman ever succeeded in the race for the presidency, women candidates were of little interest to presidential historians. And historians of women, likewise, perhaps took less interest in "presidential history" because women candidates appeared to play no significant part in that story.

The first woman to run for president was Victoria Woodhull, who campaigned for the Equal Rights Party in 1872 - a time when women weren't even allowed to vote. How different was the hostility Woodhull faced from the headwind women in politics might be confronted with today?

The odds against Woodhull were enormous - much greater than women candidates face today. She ran, as you point out, at a time when American women could not vote. Woodhull would not have been able to vote for herself, but as she said, "I can be voted for."

At the same time, she was running during [the post-Civil War] Reconstruction era when there was a vibrant debate taking place in the United States about the meaning of freedom as Congress debated the 14th and 15th amendments to the US constitution, which conferred citizenship and voting rights on African-American men.

Women suffragists used this moment to press their case that women should also be enfranchised. That did not happen. But a lively debate was underway. And Woodhull's candidacy attracted a lot of attention, sparking considerable discussion about the idea of a woman president. There was great curiosity about this notion. Many seemed intrigued and though some rejected the idea out of hand, the sexism in newspaper coverage at least seemed less obvious than when Margaret Chase Smith ran nearly a century later.

In 1964, Margarete Chase Smith - the first woman to be a member of both houses of Congress - also became the first woman to be placed for nomination at a major party's convention. However, Smith, a Republican, campaigned with little funding and eventually lost all the primaries in the presidential campaign. Why is she still an important figure?

Smith made history as the first woman to have her name placed in nomination by a major political party. Furthermore, she came to the race for the Republican nomination as a deeply experienced and highly respected senator with decades in national political life. She was perhaps among the best qualified women to ever run for the office before Clinton.

She also undertook a run for the presidency at a time when a second wave feminism was gathering steam. Her entire political life had been made possible by the efforts of club women and other engaged female activists who rallied around her in Maine. She took a courageous stance and was ridiculed in the process.

A few years later in 1972, Shirley Chisholm became the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. She was also the first African-American woman to be elected to Congress. Chisholm, making dual strides as a black woman running for president, faced headwind not only from her political adversaries, but also from progressive peers: Feminists, the Democratic elite and black men were all hesitant to support her. How come?

There was a widespread assumption among both civil rights activists and feminists - and certainly among Democratic Party elites - that Chisholm could never run a competitive race and that their energy therefore needed to be focused laser-like on defeating Richard Nixon. They therefore chose to put their energy behind George McGovern who, of course, wound up losing in a landslide.

How has the sexism that female presidential candidates face changed over time?

It has become less explicit, less obvious as Americans today generally affirm that they have no reluctance in principle about electing a female president. However, many argue they simply are not enthusiastic about Clinton per se - with their response having nothing to do with her sex. And that is undoubtedly true for many.

At the same time, there are certainly many echoes of the past today. Trump, for example, has made much of the notion that Clinton lacks the stamina, strength, energy and even the health to discharge the duties of the presidency. This was of course said of Margaret Chase Smith in 1964 when some commentators and citizens didn't hesitate to say explicitly that this was because of Smith's gender which was inherently disqualifying in their view.

Sexism is not the only obstacle that women campaigning for the presidency are confronted with. How are the challenges Hillary Clinton faces similar to those of her predecessors - and how are they different?

What is remarkable about Clinton is the degree to which she has overcome the chief obstacles that sank all of her predecessors in ways that today have become major sources of criticism of her campaign.

One of the key factors that impeded women in the race for their presidency was their inability to raise sufficient funds to mount effective national campaigns. In the US today, these campaigns involve millions of dollars. None of Clinton's predecessors could raise that kind of money. She has, but she's faced enormous criticism for her reliance on big money and wealthy donors.

Furthermore, because polling showed widespread doubts among the public about having a woman president and because of women's lack of success as presidential candidates, those failures also discouraged financial support from the major political parties. The party elites understandably had doubts that a woman candidate could win - after all, none had and thus the major parties were reluctant to throw their support behind women candidates.

Clinton has gained the support of party elites but has also been cast by her opponents as too much of an insider. Clinton also brings more experience in national politics to her candidacy than any other woman candidate in American history. She has been on the national stage for decades - first as first lady, then as a senator, then as a presidential candidate in 2008 and then as Secretary of State. However, that past has become the focus of intense criticism from opponents who find fault in her record.

To what extent did women like Woodhull, Smith and Chisholm lay the groundwork for Hillary Clinton's candidacy and success today?

The history of Clinton's predecessors casts in stark relief the obstacles that have faced women seeking the American presidency. Woodhull, Smith and Chisholm did not really lay the groundwork - a metaphor that suggests a way was paved for their successors that made the quest easier. Instead, the story is, in some sense, one of firm barriers that have yielded slowly as the result of sweeping social and political movements over the course of the 20th century that changed the United States as a whole.

The candidacies of Clinton's predecessors emerged out of those historical moments and crystallize the tensions involved. To be sure, progress has been made and, as a result of the long accretion of historical change, Clinton occupies a much altered political landscape despite the remaining challenges. We continue to see echoes, however, of the difficulties Clinton's predecessors faced.

Have we finally reached a time when any woman can become President of the United States?

Absolutely. I think it is likely. But I'm a historian and while I can tell you what happened, I can't predict the future.

Ellen Fitzpatrick is a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire. Her book "The Highest Glass Ceiling" on female presidential candidates in the US was first published in February 2016.